Article: “Evolution Made The Human Fist Fit For Punching.”
The article contains a more comprehensive link to the study.
https://www.Newsweek.com/evolution-made ... ing-386426
Although the fist and punching (striking with the fore fist knuckles) is the most basic type of strike in combat sports, as well as in virtually all martial arts that include striking, I have some problems with this study. Using an apparatus to manipulate the arms of cadavers to strike dumbbells does not, in any way, equal real life.
I am NOT discounting the effectiveness of properly-landed fore fist punches. I’ve used them in a couple of real fights myself. But there are very effective methods of striking with the hand that carry far less risk of breaking one’s own hand than fore fist punching.
If you had to pound on a door hard with your hand, what would you do? Most likely you’d use a hammer fist, striking with the fleshy outside edge of the hand, NOT punching with the fore knuckles. Hammer-fisting a door is the natural instinct; not punching the door with a right cross or a karate reverse punch. Pounding a door hard with a fore fist punch is a pretty sure way to break the bones in your hand. Breaking the hand while fore fist punching is common enough that a break in the metacarpal bone of your ring finger or pinky finger is called a “boxer’s fracture.” Even Mike Tyson broke his hand in a street fight against boxer Mitch Green. The hand could also be broken if the punch lands with the two prominent (index and middle finger) knuckles. And that’s supposing the punch lands on target properly.
There are some guys who have had considerable street fighting experience, who claim to have never broken their hands while punching in fights. Geoff Thompson punched hundreds of people with fore fist punches without breaking his hand, but that could have been pure luck. Also, in most of Geoff Thompson’s fights (as a bouncer), he threw and landed the first (which was also usually the last) punch of his fights, to the chin or the jawline, making for quick, one-punch knockouts. He had them lined up for the shot very subtly beforehand, which doesn’t happen in the majority of situations and fights involving people who aren’t doormen.
To be fair, some men’s hands are thicker/heavier-boned than others, but even their hands are not immune to breaking. I knew a guy with thick hands who had broken the middle finger metacarpal bone in his right hand from throwing a punch that landed wrong. It had healed improperly, and he could no longer make a proper fist with that hand anymore.
The study never considers that fore fist punching is not a suitable SD tactic at all for people who have delicate hands and bone structure, especially without considerable conditioning.
The study in the article also discounts the effectiveness of open-handed strikes; specifically, open-handed slaps. You cannot recreate and measure the effects of a PROPERLY applied slap, that lands with the full palm (not the fingers), or with the palm heel, to the jawline, the ear, the cheek, etc., thrown with bad intent, hip torque and follow-through, by using a contraption to swing a cadaver arm to strike a dumbbell. That’s “dumb.” It’s only one more example of the ignorance of the effectiveness of a *proper* slap.
The researchers who did the study obviously theorized a lot, but have no actual fighting experience themselves.
Jim